[sdiy] Generating acyclic waveforms?

[cheater cheater]

Veronica,
thanks for your email.

> This is one of the reasons I started looking at additive synthesis and the Synergy. I have tried to do this in the analogue world with several sine VCOs but it wasn't easy.

Yes, executing the additive approach in analogue seems a bit like
we're barking up the wrong tree here. I think the *key to this* is to
find some electronic process that inherently generates anharmonic or
aperiodic oscillations, be it stretched tuning or not.

> Adding noise to the reset level in a VCO is not going to modulate the harmonic content over the duration of a note to mimic harmonic sharpening.

That's the cool thing about it. It makes the waveform acyclic while
keeping the wave at the old pitch, making the effect indistinguishable
to our pitch perception.

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 01:33, Scott Nordlund <gsn10 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I consulted a fellow composer and he says that pretty much all western
>> instruments have different tuning starting the 6th harmonic of their
>> central pitch. So the harmonic series looks like this:
>>
>> C C G C E G (Bb) C...
>>
>> but the Bb is out of tune with the ieal equal temperatment tuning (and
>> I assume the following C too, but not sure). I didn't get to know
>> which way it's out of tune (sharp or flat), because he's busy dumping
>> MIDI. Those composers, sheesh.. ;-)
>
> That's just the 12 tone equal tempered scale, it has nothing to do with
> inharmonicity or aperiodic waveforms.  The Bb isn't the only one out of
> tune either.

Yeah, agreed - it was just a comment on a general practice in an
every-day setting; i.e. in general you start tuning differently at the
6th harmonic. Since this is said to be a general practice for *all*
instruments, I am deducting that we're not talking about something
esoteric that nobody ever encounters.

D.